[Spellyans] Jazz

[Eddie Climo]

It's un-italicised 'jazz' in UCR, of course. If we were to have KS  
*jaz, then I think we'd have to have *jazek rather than ?*jasek, lest  
people attempt a spurious back-formation:

tasek < tas
gwlasek < gwlas
tewasek < tewas
lagasek < lagas
etc.
So, quite natural to think:
?*jasek < *jas

Whereas, jazek<jaz is not prone to this error.

Moreover, KS *jas might lead to some unfortunate misconstruals:

> jaspys = a piece of jazz (rather than 'jasper')
>
> jasmyn = a jazz kid (rather than the fragrant flower)
>
> lefanjas = the voice of jazz (instead of a plurality of frogs)
>
> Then there'd be the jazziest book in the New Testament: 'Pystyl  
> Jamys', which is abbreviated to UCR 'Jas.'

Finally, it's always OK to use an italicised loan-word with the  
original spelling (within the bounds of good style, at least).

So, fwiw, my money's on jaz/jazz/jazek.

Eddie Foirbeis Climo
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On 5 Jul 2008, at 12:43, nicholas williams wrote:

> Jaz.
>
> Tasek 'spiritual father' occurs in BM and Casak 'St Cadoc' in BK.
> Casek, casak 'mare' is also well attested.
> Jasek would be in good company.

> On 5 Jul 2008, at 11:50, Michael Everson wrote:
>
>> How shall we spell this? Welsh has unassimilated <jazz> and
>> assimilated <jas> with <jasaidd> 'jazzy'.
>>
>> In Cornish, unassimilated <jazz> is of course possible, but would be
>> properly italicized in print as a loanword. As an assimilated word =,
>> <jaz> and <jas> would be pronuounced identically, rhyming with <tas>
>> 'father'. An adjective <jazek> or <jasek> might be derived for
>> 'jazzy'.
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